


occupants of earlier dates

by vivacephoenix



Category: Infernal Devices Series - Cassandra Clare, Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Bane Chronicles, The Shadowhunter Chronicles
Genre: Betrayal, F/M, Family History, Gen, Ghosts, Love, Missing Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 21:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivacephoenix/pseuds/vivacephoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had not invited a ghost here to lecture him tonight and this was not Dickens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	occupants of earlier dates

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from a tumblr conversation. Since Will and Jace can see ghosts, why couldn't that be genetic? If you think about ashesandhoney's idea of Will visiting Earth several times as a ghost before the Tessa/Jem wedding there's an intervention he would try. 
> 
> Poets are Longfellow, Sir Walter Raleigh, Dickinson, and Neruda. That specific Neruda poem came out in the 1950s, but Will's afterlife totally has contemporary books in it. The title comes from Longfellow.

**1990**

Stephen closed the front door of Herondale Manor behind himself and looked for a dry spot to drop his gear bag. A dreck of fallen leaves and mud always stuck to the marble floor in the entrance hall during October and tonight the twin delicate _**H**_ s engraved in the antique windows were covered by fog and raindrops.  He left the seraph blade strapped across his back and headed to the right through the dark parlor. There were no witchlights burning on the first floor so Céline must have already gone to bed. Others in the Circle had all kinds of problems with sleepless nights and sickness during their pregnancies, but Céline sparkled. She danced around Alicante, even five months along. Her excitement was catching; she never had the slightest issue in making in an appointment to see the Silent Brothers. Mum told him privately that it was due to the importance of their family within the Clave, something Stephen felt was a bit unkind to say. He hadn’t chosen to marry her, but Céline deserved the joy she had.

He climbed the stairs very softly thanks to the stealth rune from the official Circle meeting earlier. Valentine was oddly contented with Celine considering that she never liked going on missions and didn't have the political fervor of the rest of the group, particularly the Lightwoods. He told Stephen that Celine had her own calling and never questioned her.

He was not pleased with Stephen this evening. Valentine wanted their next target to be Professor Fell:

"We can't go for him yet," Stephen had reasoned. "He was High Warlock of London for two hundred years and he teaches at the Academy. Someone will link it to us." It was fortunate for the Circle that the Council had not believed Magnus Bane about the Whitelaws’ demise in New York. Stephen knew what the Circle had stated was not a lie. The Whitelaws had died because of the werewolves, but the situation was problematic. That warlock was still out there.

"Fell may have the Clave wrapped around his finger with the Accords and his positions, but we will show them the truth. He is still a demon and we are the children of the Angel." Valentine answered icily. He stood in front of the fireplace in order to scrutinize all of them assembled in the Morgenstern dining room. He always wore red gear when they held meetings and black for missions.

"Perhaps we could wait until after we reform the Council," Maryse proposed from her between Robert and Michael. She rocked drowsy baby Alec tenderly. "If we repeal the demonic influence of the Accords, then he and the other cowards corrupting the Clave can't use them as a shield."

"The Whitelaws and Lucian wouldn't have died if they hadn't fretted over Downworlders twisting the Law," Jeremy agreed. He leaned out past Emil’s profile to see Valentine and smiled. "We'll triumph through the power of the Angel no matter when the strike comes. Remember Chicago and Melbourne?"

"Well stated, Maryse, Jeremy," Valentine praised. He had watched Stephen carefully until Hodge had brought up the Clave's ludicrous allowance of half-faerie children training in Institutes and the Academy.

Stephen arrived at the second floor of the house (avoiding the old, inexplicable pink stain on the top stair), still deep in thought. Valentine should not have doubted him. He had always understood that Nephilim were the best in this realm. They were courageous, noble, pure, and human. The Mortal Instruments from Raziel himself were all you needed to comprehend that. Stephen’s parents didn't even like Valentine, but they agreed with him on politics. Vampires and werewolves killed, faeries deceived, and warlocks were just demons born on Earth, not in the Void. Mundanes weren't a threat to peace, but like the rest they also had no aptitude for valor.

He looked down the hall towards the master suite and sighed. It had only been a discussion tonight, not a mission, but couldn't go in to sleep yet. He was neither calm enough to train nor hungry enough to justify going back to the empty first floor for a late-night snack.  There _was_ one place in the entire manor he had never visited, but even at twenty-four years old he still didn’t want to go into the attic. Trivial, really, but Stephen couldn’t disobey that edict. Perhaps, he mused, a few hours in the library would help him unwind. He turned on the nearest witchlight so that if Céline awoke she would see he was home safely and went down the third corridor.

He remembered when he couldn't reach the bronze witchlight sconces. Growing up, whenever they had stayed in the manor he had loved jumping for the lights and running his hands over the hand-painted herons on the walls of this passage. No one knew who had painted them, not even Grandmother, but Stephen's father remembered seeing them when he walked the halls as a child. With just one light shining behind him in the darkness, the birds appeared to fly through the shadows and travel with him to the library.

He felt isolated and lonely, wandering the manor on a gloomy, damp night. If he had followed Mum and Dad’s wishes after graduation, he would be back in the old, familiar Institute and part of the Enclave. Maybe he and Amatis would have been posted somewhere together for a few years, but they definitely would have ended up in London. Herondales, Marcus sternly reminded Stephen throughout his childhood, followed commands until they ran Institutes.

The last bird’s beak was next to the library doorknob. He outlined one of the heron’s wings for old time’s sake and smiled. Both the Institute and the Manor had better libraries than even the Academy. Professor Fell had once joked in class that they should all go on outings to Stephen's home in order to study for their final examinations.

Ever since committing to the cause, Stephen had tried not to think about him. Dad always taught that demons lied and didn't have feelings, but Stephen had taken eight years of classes with Professor Fell. He told stories about balls at Versailles and enjoyed teaching Virgil. The standards for translations and essays were high, but he could be patient if you didn't understand the concept.

"You are correct in some ways," a man's voice called to Stephen from behind the closed library door.

His stomach dropped and he felt as if an unknown enemy had dropped on him from above in the training room. Stephen snapped into combat mode like a good Shadowhunter and pulled the seraph blade from the sheath over his shoulder. How could an intruder break in? Did he have Céline? " _Malachi!_ " he cried and the blade flashed. He kicked in the door, slammed his hand against the witchlight just inside, and swung.

He was expecting a vampire or a warlock. Perhaps another Shadowhunter. He didn't think he would see the ghost of a young man sitting at the heirloom desk, intently focused on a book. Céline was not there. The rest of the cozy library looked undisturbed. The only object out of place was a silver box which sat beneath the ghost’s opened book. It was a box, Stephen knew, should be on a shelf in his childhood bedroom in London, not anywhere in Idris. The glowing man turned a page and continued talking. Having a live seraph blade just across the desk and aimed at his head didn't seem to bother him:

"You are correct in that it would be dangerous to attack Ragnor. Your organization is morally destitute so I am aware that you only cared about not getting punished by the Clave. I will tell you, however, that he is nearly seven hundred years old. Ragnor Fell is of the only people alive who can do inter-dimensional magic. Look up his treatise with the Spiral Labyrinth. He could send you lot to Mars."

The hair on the back of Stephen’s neck rose as a boom of thunder shook the windowpane. Not only had this apparition gone through his possessions, he had also followed him to the meeting. He deactivated the seraph blade and left it pointed ahead. They didn't have physical bodies, but ghosts could still be opponents. "Why did you spy on me, spirit, and take my things? Where is my wife? You are trespassing here."

In response the ghost swore in what sounded like Irish and disregarded the questions. He shook his dark hair out of his eyes. "The introduction in this edition is deplorable. I cited the faerie/mundane trials of 1805 as evidence of the injustice it was when only Nephilim testimony counted fully under the Law. She writes that I intended the opposite. Disgraceful!" He snapped the book shut and finally looked up at the blade in his face. His expression was wary, yet blank.

"Put that away, Stephen William," the specter said with a peculiar emphasis on his name. "I am not trespassing. I owned this house nearly three times as long you have lived on this Earth. We used to watch the sunrise," he craned his neck to see around a bookshelf, “from that window seat there.” He exhaled. “The cushions were purple velvet then.” 

It was strange. Ghosts were simply echoes and vestiges of a life. Frankly, the only one Stephen had really spoken to all was the Institute’s guardian, Lady Jessamine.  He’d mostly avoided the others throughout London. Lady Jessamine was a Nephilim soul and thus demanded respect, but she seemed remote. No one asked about the years before she died, when she lived at the Institute.

This man, however, wanted to read about the legal system and looked completely comfortable behind the desk, as if it were a place he had sat a thousand times in life. He steepled his insubstantial fingers and glared at Stephen. “And as to your second inquiry, I swear on the Angel that Céline Herondale is sound asleep. You should have checked on her once you returned home.”

Stephen did not want advice from an interfering spirit, even if he had been a Shadowhunter. But, he slid the blade back into its scabbard and folded his arms. If the man didn’t answer well, he could call the Silent City.  “All right, then. Herondale Manor is not haunted. I don’t know about the past, but now, we don’t have any ghosts hanging about here.  Who are you and why did you after to me tonight?” He looked pointedly at the silver box and waited, listening to the falling rain.

The ghost raised his eyebrows at Stephen and leaned back in his seat: 

_“All houses wherein men have lived and died_

_Are haunted houses. Through the open doors_

_The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,_

_With feet that make no sound upon the floors.”_

Stephen blinked. First, politics, now poetry? Would this man get to the point? Was he trying to mock him? At least he had called himself harmless, though Stephen was apprehensive of that. He tried not to clench his teeth.  “What does Whitman have to do with anything? I won’t be distracted.”

He received a deeply annoyed look in return. “I did answer your question, but I see must speak more plainly.” He muttered something under his breath, clearing his throat.  “I am Gwilym Owain Herondale, or William Owen if you’d prefer. My purpose here tonight is you, my great-great grandson.” He paused for a moment and then continued, as if he couldn’t let the moment go. “And that was Longfellow, not Whitman.”

 “Sorry,” Stephen said with shrug. “I enjoy Renaissance or modern poets, but I’ve never had much interest in nineteenth century-Americans.” He supposed that it made since for this man to be a distant family member if he had stolen the Herondale box. But it was still unsettling. He only _appeared_ around Stephen’s own age and had clearly lived to be much older. Stephen racked his brains hastily, trying to think of anything he remembered about Grandfather’s early life. Born at the Institute, of course, to parents who ran it…where did this William fit in?

William chuckled. “I certainly did. I’m very fond of them.” He fiddled with the box’s catch and went on. “I chose this as the object to hold me on Earth tonight because it’s one of the few items to which you and I both share a connection.” He looked through Stephen, as if he were the ghost, to a day long past. “We picked this out as a gift for Owen when he left to study in Brazil. A reminder of home from Gran and Grandad.”

“That was…very thoughtful.” Stephen only had faded memories of Grandfather from a few holidays as Owen Herondale had died in battle before Stephen was old enough to be Marked. Given that Dad didn’t bring him up other than as another example of how their family lived the Law, Stephen had long assumed there was some old animosity they’d never resolved. What he did know was this: “He gave me that box when I was born. I took it with me to the Academy.”

“Yes, that sounds like a tradition he would establish.” William’s translucent eyes on him were still somehow shrewd. “Why didn’t you bring it here once you moved in? Why did you leave it behind in London?”

Stephen remained silent and stared out the window. The thunder boomed again. William was a stranger. If he wanted to reflect on gifts and cushions, that was one thing, but Stephen wasn’t going to talk to him about the pressure from his parents to join the Enclave or the demands from Valentine. They were none of his business. 

“Hmm….” William used Stephen’s silence to study him and cocked his head. “I am a bit surprised that they named you after me. I imagine my grandson pushed for it. Lydia hated me and my wife.”

He frowned. Stephen had always loved tea with Grandmother. She had moved from the manor back to the Institute in her last years and would give him extra biscuits whenever he could correctly answer one of her questions on Council policy. Her philosophy about never underestimating the weapons you had was why she thought all Nephilim children, regardless of gender, should be trained for war.  “I never heard her speak poorly of another Shadowhunter my whole life,” he said slowly. “Why did she hate you?”

“You just said why,” William responded, nodding. He leaned forward with a slightly bitter grin. “You never heard her speak poorly of another _Shadowhunter_.” There was hostility in his gaze. “But we’re not the only ones in this world.”

Stephen’s head started to pound and he rubbed his forehead. He had come to the library for peace and quiet and found the imprint of an ancestor who wanted to speak in puzzles. He should have read one of the books in his and Céline’s bedroom until he fell asleep or gone to the training room. “William, if you want to talk about the Accords, mundanes, Downworlders, or whatever it was the two of you disagreed on, then I will end our bizarre chat and go to bed. They don’t concern me. Go to the next Clave meeting.”

William laughed, but it was cold and unfriendly. He pushed the chair back from the desk with a muffled squeak from the floor. “Downworlders don’t concern you? You, after all that has happened?” He glared again. “I said you are my purpose here and I have one very important question: How many lives?”

“How many lives, what?” Stephen snapped, patience gone. He grabbed one end of his seraph blade sheath and held on, for something to do with the tension in his hands. This was almost more exasperating than a sermon from Dad or Valentine. 

“How many lives are over because of the Circle of Raziel? How many people have you killed?” William spoke in an almost even tone of voice, but his countenance was no longer controlled and he did not look to start reciting poetry. This was why he had come tonight. Even on ghostly features, a fragment of what he would have had in life, his anger blazed.

Stephen felt a pang of guilt in his heart now, like a huge chunk of adamas wedged in it. To turn on another Nephilim broke the Law in so many ways. He had wondered if Raziel would punish them for it someday. Maybe all of his friends were experiencing visits tonight. “Five,” he said quietly. He didn’t hang his head. Shadowhunters owned up to their disasters. “I didn’t want to kill the Whitelaws— Adam was Mum’s cousin—but they chose—”

“Not just the Whitelaws!” William shouted. He roughly got to his feet and stomped inaudibly over to the end table which held a globe. He spun it with one hand and jabbed his finger at each city he named. “Berlin. Milan. Alexandria. Nagoya. Melbourne. Seoul. Quito. Toronto. Chicago. Cape Town. Granada. Inverness. _New York._ ” He glowered, breathing hard at the end of the list. He was still enraged and Stephen could also see disgust. “Why? Why, Stephen?”

“I know we were wrong in New York,” Stephen whispered. He strained to sound emotionless, like Valentine always did when other students had interrogated him about their plans at the Academy. That was almost the same question Magnus Bane had asked him in New York, with a voice that sounded human. “But, in those other cities, we did the work of the Angel. They were victories for the side of Heaven.”

The disgust deepened and William slammed his hand down on the table silently. “Linda Sky’s niece and nephew have been to every Institute across Canada to try and understand what happened. Bianca Segreti’s coven held a funeral, even without a body. They know she’s gone. Eòghann, the faerie page? His mother made the frost come early to Scotland this year. She hated watching the autumn leaves. And Magnus Bane?” His voice was growing louder again; library empty except for two of them. “You and your father wouldn’t even exist if it were not for his kindness.” He fixed his eyes on Stephen. “Yet you tried to kill him. How are those losses or any of the others a victory for the Light?”

“ _In hoc signo vinces_ ,” Stephen retorted decisively with a gesture at the globe. William’s pale hand was still on New York City. “There are fewer demons in the world. We are called to purify and protect the world for the Angel even when the Clave is weak and timid.” Why was a man from the time of Queen Victoria so fixated on dangerous creatures like Downworlders? The Accords would not have existed when he was born. Even today, he could not imagine Dad or most other Institute Heads speaking straightforwardly about vampire covens holding services or a warlock’s mortal connections.

William drew himself up to his full height, though he had no body. He ran a hand through his hair, fingers tense. “Those people were also to be protected from demons!” He curled his lip in contempt. “And as for _purifying_ the world—”

“They were not people!” Stephen bellowed back. A thought of Professor Fell’s speech at the Academy’s Graduation Tea and his card offering congratulations nudged at his mind, but he shoved it away. “If you ran an Institute, if you were a Herondale, you should understand that!” Somehow this had turned to a row. But he wasn’t going to back down to William. Living for the Angel and now the cause were what Stephen had been raised to do, no matter what. He took his eyes off the livid ghost in front of him to go check and see that Céline was not anxiously coming down the hall to see the reason he was yelling at a table in the library. Thankfully they were having this argument in a place as spacious as the manor. When he turned back around in the doorway, William was right over his shoulder.

The anger was simmering now; his voice softer. “I did run an Institute,” he replied quietly. “For thirty years.” He reached out as if to put his hand on Stephen’s shoulder, but dropped it. “Deciding who doesn't count as a person or who is somehow impure is not a way to live or a way to defend the world. It’s a poisonous falsehood.”

So much closer to Stephen, it was easier and harder to picture him alive. His shoulders and head did not block out the room at all. Out in the stormy night he would have almost been like the fog. But the sadness, almost grief, Stephen could not see before on his face was evident. He let out a long sigh. “You…your parents, your friends…it’s the only way you think.” He looked as if he wanted to bury his face in his hands, but only shook his head. “ _Their purpose is ambition/Their practice only hate/And if they once reply_ —”

“ _Then give them all the lie,”_ Stephen snarled. “Raleigh isn’t relevant here because we are not the liars. Downworld has slander and rumor, but we are the truth.” London’s Downworld in particular told all kinds of lies about his family, but he had always followed Grandmother’s example and ignored them.  They only murmured about infernal magic in the family tree because of how long the Herondales had run the Institute _._ Demons lied, demons lied, he repeated to himself. He held his hand out to William. “You see that globe over there? With the Circle, we make this world safer for Nephilim and—” He broke off.  

William pursed his lips and regarded Stephen’s hand. “No,” he countered simply. “You are all ‘impure.’ But," he continued, pushing past Stephen into the hallway, “ _The Truth must dazzle gradually/_ _Or every man be blind.”_ He crossed his arms over his chest, faintly illuminating the corridor. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

“Why should I?” He had not invited a ghost here to lecture him tonight and this was not Dickens.  He stalked over to the desk and returned with his box. “I can take this back to London and put a ward around it.” Stephen scowled, aggravated by William’s expectant demeanor. “Everyone says what choices I should have made, how I have to live my life. And I follow what I believe to be the will of the Angel.  I can’t doubt that.” His left hand rested on the shiny lid of the box, family crest peeking through his fingers. The Voyance rune, his first one inscribed, looked blurry in the low witchlight.

Surprisingly, William’s face did not show any impatience, something Stephen could admit was notable. He must have honed his own version of the unreadable look all Council members could employ. He sighed. “You were not brought up to make your own decisions, Stephen, because their consequences might not have been in the interests of the Clave. I see that as an offense, not only as a father, but as someone who worked to change what a better world meant for us all, not just Nephilim.” He spoke sincerely, earnest voice in odd juxtaposition with his inscrutable body language. “But you _must_ confront the reality of what you have done.”  He traced the same painted heron wing next to the doorknob that Stephen had touched on his way into the library.

Rude, irritating, and politically absurd as William was, there was that melancholy there if Stephen allowed himself to acknowledge it. He tried to envision visiting Herondale Manor or the Institute decades from this night, his own life and story forgotten. All who William had once known and loved in this house were gone. Stephen supposed he could give him a few more minutes. “If I go with you, will you leave? I don’t want to find you reading Emerson tomorrow.”

He smiled briefly, but his reply was completely serious. “Yes. I will have nothing left to say to you beyond this.”

Stephen motioned for him to lead the way and they set off down the hall. They traveled farther into the house, past the drawing room, an auxiliary weapons storeroom, a music room, and guest bedrooms. William’s glow was a bit like a witchlight, lighting up each door. He walked confidently, mouth twisting in the occasional frown, likely labeling a change from his memories.

“Did you ever jump to touch the birds?” Stephen blurted out. It was a bit of a silly question, but the idea of another little boy in a different century running through the manor to the library reminded him not of the past, but the near future. Soon, perhaps, there could be a new generation to explore the manor.

“No, actually,” William answered, startled. “I never lived in Idris at all until I was an adult. My sister Cecily painted those herons when we brought the house out of disrepair.”

Herondale Manor was one of the oldest in Idris.  Stephen had discovered a cornerstone from the sixteenth century playing in the garden’s lilies. The bricks in the kitchen hearth were stamped "MDCL". Even the furniture spanned from the 1770s to the present day, depending upon the room. Why would the house be uninhabited during William’s childhood? “You two didn't grow up here?”

They turned right down a narrower passage. It reminded Stephen of the old servants’ wing in London. Except by the cook, David, and the housekeeper, Alice, those rooms were mostly used for training exercises and storage. William counted the doors, half-listening. “My mother owned an estate in Wales.  _Cymru am byth_. This one.” He rapped on the fifth door, fingers making no sound.

If William’s mother had owned an estate then she could not have been Nephilim and his political views suddenly made much more sense. Shadowhunters who were less tied to Idris were in general not as devoted to the Law. Those Stephen could identify at the Academy as being from the mundane world were the least so. Valentine declared that by having all mundanes Ascend it would end this problem, but Stephen was unsure of that. It was hard to teach someone to properly dedicate their life to Raziel unless they learned from birth.

William nodded to the heavy door. “It’s warded. Open it, but—” he admonished, “Don’t break my house.”  

Nausea made Stephen’s stomach twist uncomfortably. He had never realized that Mum and Dad had created wards inside the house.  This was not like the one around the throwing dagger display at the library in London. That was for his own safety before he started to train. Mum had proudly let him dismantle it the day of his runing ceremony. To block off part of the house and never tell him, even as an adult? There was only one place this could be. He swallowed thickly and used the stele from his pocket to draw two runes. At the beginning of his training, Dad would create wards for him to undo within a certain timeframe. This was more of a challenge, but he still remembered. The lock clicked open, but when he grasped the doorknob and pulled, the metal snapped off in his hand. The door opened to a flight of very dusty, though undamaged, wooden stairs. He coughed. The stairs disappeared into the darkness, but Stephen knew where William had brought them. “The attic.”

“This is the only door sealed off,” William commented. “Curious to bar access to your own attic.” He gave Stephen a searching look and started to climb. Stephen dropped the lock and doorknob on the carpet, keeping ahold of his box. He followed up the stairs, steps groaning under his weight and smudging dirt all over his socks. William left no footprints.

“I never really thought about what could be up here,” Stephen confessed. As a boy, the dark attic wasn’t somewhere he had wanted to go, unlike the stables. Then he had the Academy and Amatis; now the Circle and Céline kept him occupied. “I never broke the rules, but I didn’t think they’d put up wards.” He glanced up through William’s back to the approaching top stair. The air was cooler here and the sound of the rainwater rushing off the roof resounded everywhere. “Out of sight, out of mind…” 

William moved aside once he had reached the top, squeezing behind an old trunk. “That was probably their train of thought,” he agreed coolly. He indicated for Stephen to follow him through the collection of everything from antiques to rubbish. Stephen felt along the wall for a witchlight fixture first and found a mounted candelabrum, turning it on for the first time in Angel knew how many years. There was an aisle down the middle of the high-ceilinged space. On one side were racks of old clothes. There was gear meant for women in an era of petticoats hung up with tea gowns. Below, them, men’s boots. Just beyond that on the other side was a vanity table draped in a golden wedding banner. Next to that, a settee holding a typewriter, stacks of paper, two saddles, and riding gloves.  William may have recognized much of it, but he did not stop, focused ahead.

 “This used to hang over the fireplace in the parlor,” he explained. “Where that painting of Raziel is now. Your parents or grandparents took it down. The children would never have stood for it.” He nodded at the other side of an assembly of old wardrobes and two crates full of arrows. There, leaning against the far wall, was a sizable painting covered in a white cloth. William walked one way around the cluster of furniture and Stephen the other. He waved his hand at the upper corners of the sheet. They each took an edge of the cloth in one hand and hauled it away, releasing more dust into the air. Stephen turned his face into his sleeve so as to not receive an eyeful of it. William continued his account of the work’s history. “It was a gift from them for our fiftieth anniversary.”

Stephen wiped his eyes and looked up, taking in the painting from the bottom of the gilt frame down by their feet to the top just above their foreheads. With a small shock, he realized exactly where the painting had been done. It was the London Institute library on a spring day. Sunlight poured through the windows onto the bookshelves and the group arranged around a couple in two armchairs. The artist had accurately depicted the celebratory mood. Each person, no matter their age, had twinkling eyes and rosy cheeks, their posture relaxed. From the sleek dresses and suits, Stephen would guess that it was sometime between the two wars. He imagined walking in the front door downstairs and seeing this as your first impression of the manor.

It was the kind of Shadowhunter family history piece that many of Stephen’s friends, like Robert and Jocelyn, displayed with dignity in their homes. The Herondales had barricaded theirs off behind a ward. William sent him a knowing look. “The Herondales and Blackthorns in 1929,” he said formally. He pointed to each smiling figure. “Will,” he began with a self-deprecating head tilt, specifying the older man seated on the left. “Behind me, my son James, his wife Cordelia, and their children: Owen and Evelyn.” That skinny teenager with the broad grin was Grandfather? Owen had the same red hair as his mother, catching the light. It was truly bewildering to stand with a young-looking ghost who was in fact old at the same time as he studied an image of his grandfather as a youth. William, or Will as he had called himself, moved around him to better see the other side of the piece.

 “Next to Evelyn is my daughter Lucie, then her husband Jesse, and their children: Gabriel, Eleanor, and Jonathan.” William took a deep breath before the last name, that of the woman in the armchair. “Finally, my wife Tessa.” It came out unsteady, his ghostly hand lingering by her painted face. His eyes were sorrowful and he murmured something too low to make out.

Stephen gave him the privacy of that moment. A flash of lightning flickered in the semi darkness. His attention bounced between questions. Since when did Grandfather have a sister? Why was this painting of a peaceful, loving moment locked away? Why would anyone take it down? He had a sinking feeling that the answer had something to do with Downworld’s gossip.  Stephen furrowed his brow, examining each face again.

Clues about their lives came through the artist’s brush. Lucie had a matronly hand on the shoulders of two of her children, but her expression had a playful air. James and Cordelia each held a copy of the Codex, an old symbol in art for those who ran Institutes.  Evelyn and Eleanor, dark curls the same length, had their arms around each other and matching blue hair bows. Jonathan, the youngest, stood the same height as the seated figures. One of his small hands clutched the side of Tessa’s chair. Stephen looked from Tessa’s face on the canvas to senior William beside her to the ghost in the attic. Comprehension struck suddenly and he leaned in closer to confirm it. _Tess, Tess, Tessa_. Her right hand held William’s, their joined hands resting on the armrests of the chairs. In the crook of her left arm was the book from which Stephen had read at his first wedding. _“Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name?”_ He straightened up. “You’re the Will and Tessa from the letter.”

William beamed. It made him resemble the man in the painting and Stephen saw the boy who wrote a letter about dreams and hope instead of the angry specter. “Yes, we are.” He spoke to the painting again. “ _And when I lifted my eyes to your name/suddenly your heart showed me my way.”_ The happiness vanished and William recollected himself. He set his jaw, scowling. “That part of our story, of _her_ , apparently could stay. _Llwfr_! To obliterate everything she was and keep that!” 

And with that Stephen understood. He clenched his silver box tighter in his hands. There had been something off about the portrait, something like a line in a sonnet that didn't fit. It was Tessa. He and William stood in front of a painting, not a photograph, but you could still tell. She looked too young to have been married fifty years and have grandchildren. The Clave was not like the emperors of Rome who commissioned sculptures of their younger selves, no matter how long they had been in power. Shadowhunters rejoiced in the wisdom of aging and respected mortality. That meant she was not one of them. “You married a demonic—" He discontinued that question at the terrifying glint in William’s eye. He would probably try and throw him into the wall. Stephen finished it with a different term. “—a Downworlder?” Here it was, in the attic, the proof of what they whispered in London. 

“I did,” William said staunchly. “Heroic and powerful as Boadicea.”  He radiated assurance and strength supported by years of devotion.  “By the time I was your age, I had been Head of the Institute for six years. Even with our position they still scolded and tried to bring her down. Your Circle of Raziel is more organized, but not distinctive from an ideological standpoint. We faced the Clave and fought to reform it,” he said passionately.

Stephen didn’t want to hear about their attempts at expanding the Accords. He was repulsed and horrified. A Downworlder had once lived an entire lifetime in the Institute. Yes, there were some who could cross the threshold, like warlocks and werewolves. London had to host a dinner for the High Warlock and the Praetor Lupus Alpha at least once every year. The Academy engaged some to teach. But Shadowhunters who had families against the wishes of the Angel did not hold Council seats! Just last year Cardiff had chosen a new Institute Head after Joyce Cadwallader had gone public about her relationship with a vampire woman. If she’d only chosen a Nephilim, Stephen thought she should have kept her station.

Bigger than just that, however, was what it meant for Stephen. If this Tessa was really his great-great grandmother, then he did not just have the blood of the Angel. Their bloodline was tainted by the Void. He did not say that to William as they would certainly then come to blows and his rage increased the more he thought about it. “I did everything for the Circle!” he cried. “I took the oaths, fought the enemy, and _ended my marriage_ for our beliefs.” They had deceived Stephen all of these years. Grandmother told him to disregard the rumors when she had surely known all along that they were spot-on. Mum and Dad exhorted him still to bear in mind their history of dedication to the Angel. Stephen realized that maybe it was not just for him that they did it. They did not want the shame to go forward and worked to stamp it out.

William smirked coldly at him. “Yes, you and your family are hypocrites and liars, Stephen, even if you personally did not know for sure.” He gestured at the painting. “The only one left on your side who refuses to be dishonest is Evelyn. She’s retired now in Wales. I don’t think she’s set foot in the London Institute for twenty years.”

He held up a see-through hand so Stephen would not interrupt him. Truthfully he did not know how to reply to that. Deep down, hadn’t Stephen wondered if it could be true? He once debated asking Professor Fell about it after an exam, watching him snap his fingers to rearrange the desks. But he hadn’t truly wanted to know and repressed the impulse. William folded his hands, gaze sharp. “I do not show you this so that you start wallowing.” He stepped closer. “I did it because _this_ is the truth. This is who we are Stephen, no matter how much anyone endeavors to erase and bury it. Now you must change. There is no forgiveness for what you have done,” he avowed authoritatively. “You have slaughtered in the name of the Angel and you must end it.” His eyes scorched. “You will end it.”

Stephen couldn’t look at him. He was sick to his stomach, furious.  He wanted to confront his parents about what they had hidden from him, wanted to run from this ancient house and all its miseries. “Do what? Leave the Circle? Go back to London?” Patrick Penhallow had renounced the Circle and fled Idris to escape Valentine’s wrath. But Stephen did not want to go to London, his other home. There were just as many secrets there. He could not interact with its Downworld now or even the Enclave in which he had grown up. If Stephen was not a whole Shadowhunter, who else? The Lightwoods? The Waylands? Maybe even the Morgensterns?

Considering his question thoughtfully, William answered. “Maybe you could return to London. Talk to Céline about what she wants for the future. You set each other as a seal and will soon have a child together. You will have many responsibilities. Raise your son or daughter without duplicity or misinformation.” He looked to his own children with a sigh. “Teach them empathy and to protect the good in this world with seraph blades, not destroy it. That is all I can tell you, all I can do to stop you on your current path. Any choice you make now, remember the attic and this painting.” He fell silent.

It was so much to accept. It was almost like a dream of a ghost and rainy night. But Stephen was awake and lost. It was as if someone had given him a dagger, but no target and told him to hit a bulls-eye. He recalled the day of his first runing, the day he pledged to follow the Angel. That led him to the cause. It was what he knew, but it had a cracked foundation. If Stephen threw the knife, took the chance, perhaps he could figure out what he was supposed to do. But no one could help.

Before William disappeared, his Earthly undertaking complete, Stephen had one more question for him. “Do you have the mark from an angel?”

William didn't seem surprised. “They wouldn't be able to cover up that now, would they?” he asked dryly. He unbuttoned the cuff of his shirt and rolled the sleeve up to his shoulder. Marks were silver on a ghost and not black. Even on ethereal skin, the star shone.  

 

* * *

 

He melted into the darkness soon after that. William left Stephen with a last judging look and a warning. “I said to think on this night, but that does not mean using this knowledge to attack. I will be watching.” Stephen hadn’t stayed up there. It was too creepy to stand alone among the old pieces of different eras. He left the painting uncovered and walked back down to the second floor. He made a second set of footprints on the way back. No one would have known a ghost came calling by looking around. The witchlight in the hall near the master bedroom was still on. Stephen shut it off and walked by feel, feet confident on the timeworn carpet.

There were botany books scattered on top of his side of the covers. He moved them to the nightstand. Céline briefly opened her eyes after he changed into his pajamas and climbed into the ornate bed. He still hadn’t put down the silver box and lay on his back. She had taken one of his pillows to support her back, but he didn't mind. He leaned against the cherry headboard inscribed with roses and tried to finally sleep. Thunder rattled the windows.

William’s visit shadowed his dreams. He revisited the Circle’s missions to Granada and New York, the battles happening again. He stood over the dead warlock and faerie in Spain when Magnus Bane burst through the door. He spoke to Stephen once more, but they were William’s words:  “This is the truth.” Bane turned into Dad who was blocking off every door at the Institute and Dad became Valentine in front of the Morgensterns' fireplace. Amatis was next, distant and sad. When she turned to face him, he saw that he was now back home at the manor. She blurred into Tessa from the painting. Stephen jerked upright. From the clock, he read that it was around five, but did not feel rested enough for his usual hour in the training room. He kissed the top of Céline’s head and got up to write her a brief message. He would be back before noon, but there was a place where all Shadowhunter secrets prowled amid the bones: The Silent City.

He took the box and practically ran to Alicante, splashing down the chilly road. The clouds had not cleared overnight and the sun lingered below the treeline of Brocelind Forest. The silver demon towers at the city gates dripped rainwater from the night before onto the heads of the sentries and everyone below. A good number of people were out in the street as Shadowhunters did not sleep in for no reason. Michael Gladstone and Sarah Highsmith both waved to Stephen as he passed their bakery. He did not take the route down Broad Street that would take him by the Penhallows’ empty house.

The Gard itself was uncrowded. Only the Consul and Inquisitor met at this time to discuss any urgent business. The night watch would be on duty until the entire Council assembled at eight. Stephen had to make sure to be gone before that. He did not want to see Mum or Dad today. He walked through the passages of tapestries and headed down underground.

At the Silent City, however, he was not the only one in line. For Clave members in Asia and Australia this was the middle of the work day. Stephen did recognize anyone and did not have to make small talk. He tuned out the whispered requests in the still air. When it was his turn at the front of the line he asked Brother Daniel for access to the Herondale and Blackthorn records. Legally, they could not deny him the Herondale accounts, but the Blackthorn’s might be pushing it.

He saw Nephilim of all ages in the hallway of cramped research rooms. Students writing papers, Institute heads conducting investigations and retired Shadowhunters exploring history carried books and briefcases, accompanied by Silent Brothers. When he arrived at room 23B, one waited behind a smooth stone table with two drawers pulled from a filing system. His hand tapped the large Mnemosyne rune etched into table’s surface. Stephen sank into one chair, setting his own box on the tabletop, but the Brother did not sit down. Unlike the ghost last night, Stephen immediately placed him from many first runing ceremonies in London.

“Good morning, Brother Zachariah,” he said decorously. 

Brother Zachariah could not change his facial expression. His vellum-colored hood was down this morning which made it easier to see the scarred face and closed eyes. His tone in Stephen’s mind exuded loathing:

_“If this is for a plot of Valentine Morgenstern’s, then I will not show you these records. I will swear on the Mortal Sword that to do so would place others in danger from you.”_

Stephen took a deep breath of the musty air. Another political enigma.  “Do you know a poetry-quoting ghost?” It was a little too frank, but he was frustrated. Why was he so concerned? Stephen forced his eyes to stay open. He should have done an Energy rune before coming here.

Instead of speaking in his mind, Brother Zachariah lurched across the table and grabbed Stephen’s coat lapels. He fingers were icy as a statue and very strong. _“Poetry-quoting ghost?!”_ Stephen heard astonishment over the anger and felt similarly. He’d had a ghost in his library and now a Silent Brother six inches from his face in twelve hours. He had never expected this. Reaching down with difficulty between his coat and Brother Zachariah’s intricate robes, he picked up the Herondale box.

“He appeared to me last night in order to open my eyes to the truth, in his own words.” What was that first poem again? “He introduced himself with Longfellow.” He waited to see how Brother Zachariah would react to that and examined the runes on the discolored rough walls around them. They were for knowledge and memory, two concepts Stephen had never grasped as so tangled.

 _“Any immortal will tell you that.”_ Brother Zachariah’s sightless eyes scrutinized Stephen’s face, but he did not push deeper into his mind. A spark of jealousy flashed unexpectedly, but receded as soon as Stephen noticed it. _“He thought it worth the effort to speak to you,”_ he ruminated. His fingers dug in. _“Was it, Stephen Herondale?_ _What do you seek from the past?”_

Stephen swallowed and set the box back down. “I don’t who you really are, but I think you know what I’m after.” The next thought had occurred to him during his dream. It was one of the reasons he he had sped to the archives immediately. “If it is true, then Valentine can _never_ know. He would have my head and likely Céline’s too. Even the baby would not be safe. _Sed Lex, Dura Lex_ , to his interpretation.” Stephen could have chosen not to come here and left the possibility in an old portrait. But it was a day to stop the pretense. “I sincerely don’t want to know if she’s still out there, but I can’t ignore the likelihood.”

Maybe it was that he brought up the lives of those he did not want hurt or the fact that Stephen was selfish enough to mention not wanting to lose his own life. Brother Zachariah released his jacket and returned to his original spot. His next action was completely out-of-character for a member of the Brotherhood. He lifted the Herondale box and held it briefly to his chest.

 _“You may proceed.”_ The timbre of his voice changed after the official line from the Clave. It became more animated, like he used all of his will to communicate around the rune of Quietude. “ _But be aware Stephen—the Circle has never fooled me. Do not wield this for wickedness. You will be very sorry.”_

Stephen nodded. They were perfectly clear. He reached for the drawer labeled “Herondale, No. XV” and gingerly pulled apart the dividers. At the front of the papers inside was his marriage license to Céline. Next were his final divorce papers from Amatis. He flipped past those quickly. He found his own birth certificate, but kept looking. Each collection of family records should contain a copy of the family tree. And there, tucked along the side, he found it. Brother Zachariah stood still as a figure in a museum, but he still concentrated intently on Stephen. His enmity and aversion did not need speech. Stephen unfolded the larger than normal sheet of parchment and traced his hand back in time. There was Marcus, married to Imogen Whitelaw; Owen, married to Lydia Kingsmill; and James, married to Cordelia Carstairs. The next generation back was _William, 1861-1937_. He followed the line across and found her: 

_Theresa Gray, 1862_

 

* * *

 

He returned to Alicante from the Silent City, Brother Zachariah's and William's warnings ringing in his ears. His great-great grandmother was alive in the world somewhere because she wasn’t human. It was a contradiction beyond his understanding and that made his skin crawl. And so, Stephen was, as William had said, an unknowing liar and hypocrite. He had comforted Maryse in school when her brother turned traitor and abandoned the Clave to marry a mundane. But Stephen, his father, and, grandfather were evidence of a time when his family lived a different way.

Céline liked to spend the morning tending to the greenhouse attached to the manor’s airy kitchen. He found her there, watering a row of hanging chrysanthemums and singing softly in French. He made two cups of tea in silence and enjoyed the serene melody. The tempest of thoughts about family trees, deceit, and ghosts dissipated in the morning calm. He turned off the tea kettle before it could whistle and interrupt the gentle moment. When she came through the doorway to sit down at the table, she patted his shoulder briefly on the way past.

Almost a year after the forced wedding and they were still a bit tentative around each other. Sometimes, at night, he saw Céline's eyes go to the broken rune over his heart, next to the one she had drawn. He could not apologize for Amatis and the vows he had once promised, yet he had grown to love Céline and her kindness.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, placing their cups and a plate of scones on the table. They never ate in the dining room. It seemed ridiculous to set two places at a table that could hold forty and made the house seem emptier. Céline's stomach was too large to fit comfortably in front of her at the table so she turned her chair to the side, facing him.

"The swelling in my ankles disappeared overnight," she said happily, biting into a scone. "But he has been practicing flips for the last hour." She rubbed her belly. "I reminded him that Maman is not a sparring partner." Her smile was relaxed, short blonde hair coming down from its ponytail. Stephen tucked a piece behind her ear.

"Why don't we take a walk through the gardens after this? I don't think I've ever shown you the loft in the stables." It was an old hiding place of his. He had sat up there to recite plays aloud. He had memorized most of _Henry V_ before he had his Mnemosyne rune. Maybe Céline would appreciate it. He would have to carry her up the ladder, but that was what Strength runes were for.

Her eyes crinkled. "Add in a back rub once we're there and it sounds lovely," she teased, cheeks flushing pink. Her arm bumped the table and knocked one of the teaspoons flying. It landed with a clatter beneath their chairs. Stephen grinned at her addition to the plan and knelt to pick up the spoon. He accidentally knocked his head on the wood and looked up instinctively. The underside of the table had all kinds of children's drawings and commentary. His own sketch of Jonathan Shadowhunter, added when he was nine and eavesdropping on plans for the Christmas party, stood out in black ink between two faint messages. He read the one at the end of Jonathan's blade: 

 _Lucie H. and Cordelia C. triumphed today over James H. and Matthew F. [2_ _3/8/1897]_ _You did not!-JH_

Below it one of them had drawn a picture of a unicorn. It was a casual joke between children, but Stephen's heart raced. He could almost see their frozen faces gazing out silently from the portrait upstairs. Here was another token, right in front of him, a reminder of what had never been told. What else in the manor was there? He shut his eyes, hoping that when he opened them that another ghost would not stroll in from the dining room. He closed his hand around the spoon and climbed back into his seat.

His face must have paled because Céline frowned and reached to wrap her fingers around his. "Stephen, _qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?_ Did something happen at the meeting last night? You hardly slept at all and voluntarily went to the Silent City." She hummed a bit of that same song from the greenhouse, something she did to calm her nerves. Her family's violence growing up made her anxious during moments of vulnerability.

Stephen kissed her hand. "I'm fine. It was a demanding, but...enlightening night." He didn’t know where to begin or even what to tell her. He could talk about Valentine and their disagreement, but he didn’t want to bring him into this conversation. That was also only the smallest bit of what was on his mind. William and Brother Zachariah had both told him to be cautious about what he now knew, but he did not believe that they would object to Céline knowing the truth. Stephen did not know if he wanted to tell her.  The principles of the Circle were the reason they were together in the first place and his bloodline was not wholly Nephilim. How could he tell her about the secret covered up for years and the lies? The bitterness he’d felt all morning roiled. Maybe, he ventured, he could be honest with her, end the deception. To conceal what was fact, not just rumor about something that bordered on treason to their mission was unfair. Céline deserved more.

“I want to go through the attic.” 

**

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Valentine kills the Herondales in January because of Stephen's doubts so this is the beginning of their end. He's already starting to crack by this point which is why Will visited when he did. Stephen argued with Valentine during the meeting and kept thinking about Professor Fell because he really was the only Downworlder he knew. Yet he doesn't feel bad about what the Circle did and wouldn't investigate the rumors about the Herondales. It was easier to not know.
> 
> It was interesting writing this because you have Luke's description of Stephen as "unfailingly nice without being boring" and Tessa's "[he] died with the blood of my people on his hands and hatred in his heart." Stephen did turn out exactly the way he was raised to be, but that doesn't justify his choices. The question of whether or not Stephen (or any of the TMI parents) deserves forgiveness for the crimes of the Circle is up to you. With the life Will lead, I don't believe he would think so.


End file.
